


When My Name was Rosalind

by Dream_Traveler_Kirvee



Series: Demon Story Excerpts and Side Stories [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Animal Ears, Animal Traits, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, POV First Person, Sexual Slavery, Slave Trade, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 14:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18527164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_Traveler_Kirvee/pseuds/Dream_Traveler_Kirvee
Summary: Everything has a beginning.Sparks are needed to start fires, but before you can have a spark, well, you need something to create it, right?This is how a rebellion starts.





	When My Name was Rosalind

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really really really really nervous about posting this. I've been sitting on it almost a whole year now.
> 
> This is one of many side stories I had wanted to write for years and finally got to during Creative Writing last year. It features the backstory of one of the more important side characters within Demon Story.
> 
> PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS!!! While much of it is ultimately vaguely worded, I don't want to risk anyone getting triggered, so please only go forward if you understand the heavy trigger warnings this is under and are prepared for it.
> 
> I've done my best to tag all that I can, but PLEASE let me know if I missed a tag that should be important!! Thank you!

My name is Rosalind, but it wasn’t always. In fact, I’ve had a few names in my life. _Freak_ , _Bitch_ , _Thing_ , _Pretty Girl_ , _Good Girl_ —just to name a few, if you can consider those _names_. For people like me, born into slavery as I was, real names are a rarity. Most of us spend our early childhood years going by different versions of names like these; just one more way to dehumanize and “other” us. The human children born into slavery were often gifted a name, but not us.

Like most of my kind, I don’t know who my parents were, or even if I was really born into slavery or just sold as a baby. I guess it doesn’t matter. The earliest memories I have are of orders, whips, beatings, strange men touching me, and a pervasive, overbearing sense that my life was not actually mine and that resistance was an exercise in futility. Really, when all the masters you’ve known in your life have been demons, why would you ever think to try and resist? You’d have to have a death wish. We were raised and groomed into believing that freedom and choice were scary things that we shouldn’t want, and our masters spent centuries perfecting the art of making slavery a more attractive offer. After all, better to die a multi-named slave than to die nameless and alone, or killed or abused at the hands of a free human. Demons are awful, but they at least have some standards.

So, how did I become known as Rosalind? That name was given to me by one of my first masters. Demons who own slaves often fall into two categories: those who have a thing for specific types of slaves, and those who have varied taste. This master was one of the former category, and his type was best described as young, beautiful, and innocent. We who served under him ranged from 4 years old to 10. I was 5. He gave me the name one night as I lay naked and still in his bed, his hands roaming over my immature body and stroking my hair. He’d uttered it softly under his breath the first time, but in subsequent nights like that and even during the day, he called me by that name, and so it stuck. Apparently, it means “beautiful rose”. Was I? The masters I had before him hadn’t made any such distinction with me, but then again I don’t remember them that well. Perhaps I just hadn’t grown into it yet. This master, though, made a point of displaying my “beauty” and it became one of my main selling points, along with “docile” and “eager to please” and “does as she’s told”. What choice did I have?

I wasn’t the only one. All female slaves, at any time, are subject to becoming their master’s plaything whenever the whim fancies them. However, beauty like mine came at a cost, which meant that even as the others would sometimes be chosen instead of me, I was usually the favorite of any given master. Once, when I was about 8 years old, and had since been sold by the master who named me, an older, male human slave forced himself on me one night when I was sleeping. No one tried to stop him, and his hands around my neck told me I shouldn’t either. However, the following night I was summoned to the master’s chamber. If there’s one good thing that can be said of demons, it’s that they are very possessive of their property, and unlike humans they can smell when someone else has been using it. I never saw that male slave again.

Beauty, as much as I hate to say it, was both a blessing and a curse. Because my masters deemed me beautiful, it meant that they would be more careful so as not to cause any permanent damage to my body. A damaged slave has decreased value, after all. But it was also a curse because it meant isolation from other slaves who were jealous of my status as master’s favorite, of the treatment I received in comparison to their own. Things only got worse the night the changes happened to me, one year and one master later.

Later, I’d learned that most people like me experienced seamless, painless transitions from humans into half-demons. For me, this was only true with my ears. I still vividly remember the night I woke up screaming, pain flashing and burning iron hot down my entire back. It was as if I’d been lashed within an inch of my life, or like someone had taken burning coals and placed them along the length of my back. I know the pain was bad enough that I blacked out several times during the whole process, but I still remember the feeling of my shoulder blades rearranging themselves, of the new appendages bursting out of my skin, and the skin along my sides extending with it as it grew, stretching and tightening. My throat was raw by the time it was over, my back many times weighed down than it used to be, and nausea threatening to overcome me. Everyone—master included—had been awoken by that point and life after that became much worse. Perhaps thankfully, my bleeding cycle didn’t start until after this event.

I was a bat, or half of one, anyway. My body was still small, but the wings that had grown from my shoulders that night were almost twice as big as me, and though the pain they caused eventually dulled into a tolerable ache, they made it difficult to lay on my back or do many of the chores I once had little trouble with doing. My ears, similarly, were almost as big as my head now, bat-like in appearance. Once, the beauty I’d been sold for hinged on the fact that all things considered I was what they called proportional. Attractive because I managed to look as beautiful as the standard dictated I should be, naturally. Now, with the size of my ears and my wings, I was hideously proportioned and the only thing they could say was really left of my former beauty was the fact my face was still, according to them, _pretty_. I could no longer be passed off as a human, either, but that didn’t decrease my selling value quite as much as my change in appearance had done.

The wings I’d grown were also a concern for my master and the masters following him. I was required to sit on a stool as my then-master and some other demons he’d called for consultation surrounded and regarded me. The concern was that my wings could be dangerous, despite the fact that I hadn’t yet grasped control of them. They thought I could use them to fly and escape, but I didn’t know how to fly nor would I have had the time and ability to secretly teach myself. And now that my half-demon status was visible for all to see, how could I contemplate escape? I’d die before I even left the grounds, since unaccompanied half-demons were killed on sight, or beaten to death by humans, or worse. I said nothing while they touched and examined me, though. It wouldn’t do me any good to speak, so I just let them talk around me. The first proposed solution was to rip my wings out completely. They wouldn’t regrow, but the downside to that would be that I was maimed, and maimed half-demons didn’t have as much value as unmaimed ones. Another solution was to simply bind my wings so that they could be neither weapons nor used for flight, but bonds weren’t always reliable, and my wings were strong enough to break through even a tight hold. Finally, they settled on a solution that, though it would still decrease my value, it wouldn’t affect it as much as the first option nor would it risk being ineffective like the second option. The solution: cut and carve into the sensitive skin of my wings to keep them in a constant state of healing. The pain caused by moving my wings and any attempts at flying with them would be too excruciating.

My then-master was often known for how sick and sadistic he could be, since he loved pain and inflicting it on others. Once a solution had been settled on he decided that it was late enough in the evening to invite the other two demons into playing with me, while at the same time beginning the solution. So, that night, as one demon held my face against the bedsheets—to muffle any screaming I happened to do—my master went to work on cutting into my wings while the third fondled and entered me. By the time my master was satisfied with how cut up my wings were and I was dismissed back to the slave quarters, all three had had their fill of me and I was in pain almost on par or worse than when my wings initially grew. I couldn’t walk without feeling pain and my wings couldn’t twitch without pain either. That night, for the first time in as long as I could remember, I actually cried myself to sleep.

Things went on like that for a while, and through it all, I was still known as Rosalind by both masters and other slaves. Unbeknownst to me at the time, another change was coming that I couldn’t have anticipated, not in all my years of being a slave to this system. It began at the annual slave exchange, held in the demon’s capital city by all the elite and noble demons. Slaves would either be exchanged for each other, or for money, depending on what they were looking for and the value of the slave. Prior to the event, all slaves being offered up for exchange would be taken from their masters and sorted into cages by gender. The cages were large, but we were packed in with as many as they could fit, so there wasn’t a lot of room to move. This year, like many years, there was a mix of half-demons, humans, and some that were too young to tell. I’d long since lost count of how many of these I’d been to since I was born, but this particular exchange was three masters after the one who discovered I was a half-demon. After his example, my masters would now also make cutting my wings a regular ritual. This exchange, like all the others, was routine—except for the ruckus I could hear happening over in the boys’ cage. One of the half-demons was apparently new to this, and he was making his displeasure known to all. Idiot. Doesn’t he know raising a fuss like that only results in beatings or death? He must have a death wish. I tuned him out while awaiting the exchange to start.

When the starting bell finally rang, we were dragged out in pairs—one boy and one girl, shown off side by side to a crowd of demons with our qualities read first before our current master’s names, and then the exchange would begin, sorting us into mixed groups based on who was buying us. The boys—usually being prized for manual labor and strength—only had to be half-naked while they were on display. The girls—specifically older human girls and half-demons—were required to strip completely in order to show all of our full or developing assets. Many of us had done this so often that we wore blank expressions while doing it and didn’t even bat an eye at the fact we were naked in front of a large crowd of strangers.

Finally, I was called forward and it seems I was to be paired with the half-demon from earlier who’d been raising a fuss. Huh, so he hadn’t been stabbed through the gut yet. He looked to be around the same age as me, hair as black as night and eyes blue like ice on a winter day. It was his eyes and his face that drew my attention immediately. The changes hadn’t been kind to him either it seemed; his face warped in such a way that he appeared more inhuman than me at first glance. Judging by the shape of his eyes and the way his ears looked, he was some sort of dog, perhaps even a wolf. While I walked calmly onto the stage as I’d done since I was 4 years old, he in stark contrast writhed and fought against the demon who’d dragged him out of the cage. That demon’s patience must’ve ran deep, or despite his flailing this half-demon just wasn’t as strong as the demon who held him. When actions seemed to not be working he’d scream and shout and swear out at the crowd that was watching us. How in the world had this boy survived this long?

I kept my gaze forward towards the crowd, ignoring the commotion next to me—trying to, anyway. Normally once we were called to the stage the display of our skills and assets would begin immediately, but everyone was distracted by the idiot. Off to the side I could hear the click of the slave dealer’s tongue and disgruntled mumblings about the disturbance. I didn’t chance a look to confirm, but I’d since grown used to how sharp my hearing was now, and knew I could trust in what I heard.

Finally, the boy next to me was silent. I guess the guard must’ve threatened him into it, somehow. I hadn’t been paying attention much to what was happening with him and I didn’t particularly care. All I wanted was for this to be over with. Return to the routine. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.

The dealer cleared his throat now that order had been tentatively restored, and as was standard affair with these things they started by showcasing the girl before the boy. He read off my name, then the short list of qualities I had become known for over the years. Nothing was new there, so I was only waiting and listening for the command to strip, which came shortly after he finished reading my list.

Ever since my wings grew, I hadn’t been able to wear clothes normally ever again. Nothing could be pulled over my head since it would get trapped in the back by my wings, and they were too large to fit through anything. The innermost skin was attached directly to my body from my shoulder down to the top of my hip, so anything that relied on going under my arms and across my back was out, and pants or even a skirt would sit low on my waist. What I ended up “wearing” to give some sense of modesty and mystery to potential owners and day-to-day were really nothing more than rags that barely hid anything. It was bearable when my chest was still small, but by now I had grown to where too much movement would render the rag even more useless. Still, an order was an order, so I did what I did best. I obeyed.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

The sudden break in the silence snapped me out of the trance I usually kept myself in to get through this routine, and despite myself I actually turned my head to look at him, hands frozen on the hem of the rag that I’d begun to pull up. The half-demon boy was staring at me with a look of shock, his eyes wide and mouth slightly hanging open. Right. He was new to this. He didn’t know the routine, maybe he’s never even seen a naked girl before. I didn’t know and I was too startled by his outburst to give any response. The remarks of the guard put me back into where we were, though.

“Unlike _you_ , she’s actually doing what she’s told, _boy_ ,” the guard said while sneering, clearly displeased with yet another interruption.

“Quickly now, girl, we don’t have all day,” the slave dealer said, clicking his tongue once again.

I only looked long enough to see the boy’s face falling into a scowl before he turned his head away from me, and then my sense of urgency returned to me as I quickly did as I was told, stripping the rest of the way and leaving the rags pooled on the ground at my feet. My breathing wasn’t even and my shoulders were tense as I straightened up to look back out at the crowd. His outburst had put me back in reality, so now more than ever before I could feel the hungry eyes of predators on me, hear the comments and the beginning biddings as I was told to raise my arms, lower my arms, turn around and bend over while the dealer—the only one allowed to touch us during this process—made a brief display of how flexible I could be to the crowd of potential owners.

When I was finally allowed to stand upright again, sore from where his fingers had been, a knot of sickness settled in my stomach. Had I weaker willpower, I likely would’ve vomited from it, but doing that was weakness and weakness had no place here. Weakness got you killed. I pushed through the nausea and stood still with my arms at my sides, though I couldn’t help clenching my fists in my efforts to remain calm. Even though I’d been shaken from my usual mindset, I knew how to present myself at these showings. So, despite my skin crawling and burning with their gazes, I made myself attractively presentable while waiting for the rest of this to end. Since they bring us out in pairs, we often leave in pairs too.

Perhaps fortunately for me, the boy—Zeev—was unable to be traditionally showcased. They deemed him too rowdy to be trusted with displaying any practical skills, so instead they marketed him as needing his spirit broken. He didn’t make any further outbursts, but he did mumble under his breath frequently. Had I not been concerned with living, I might’ve smiled at one of his quips.

In the end, the bidding process went much faster than the showcasing did and both of us ended up bought by the same person. I scanned the crowd for who had spoken and recognized our new owner as one of the demons that had deliberated with the former master who first cut my wings. I accidentally met his gaze and the look I received in return sent a new wave of dread through me. As we were dismissed to go into the sorting area and I gathered the rags I called clothes—we weren’t allowed to redress until we’d left the stage—I tried to push my frantic thoughts from my mind. I struggled to keep my breathing calm and even while ignoring everyone around me. This would all be over soon and I could go back to the mask I’d learned to wear since I was a young child. Soon, there would be routine again. Routine, routine, routine…

I should’ve known better. That exchange marked the beginning of the end of the routine I’d always known. By the time the closing bell had rung and all of us that had been presented were successfully sold off or exchanged, we were shoved into cages once again—this time with mixed genders and sorted by owner. The idea was that they didn’t trust us to be walked out, so it was easier to ship us to our new owner’s home in a convenient cage and have him do with us as he will after that. Our new owner’s purchases included myself, Zeev, two mole half-demons who didn’t seem related but were both blind—why he purchased them I honestly don’t know—and three other half-demons whose animal I couldn’t place. No humans. I didn’t know much about this new master, but I could guess from the present company that his type was half-demons.

Our first night in our new home went about as normal as I expected it to be. Zeev was clearly unhappy, and nothing seemed to have broken through his fiery spirit yet. He seethed the whole time we waited for our master to come assign us. I envied him, in a way, but I also pitied him. Master put him to work almost immediately and, predictably, summoned me to his chamber that first night too.

Despite my best efforts I couldn’t help the pit of anxiety that settled in my stomach as I made my way up to where he waited for me. Every so often I would remember that night that he’d participated in. Back then I had still been a child, only beginning to mature into my body. As kids, we’re often treated differently than when we’re older. I guess because the idea is that our bodies are young and fragile, therefore most masters will be gentle with us. Even that night, harsh and painful as it was, was still considered gentle as far as these things went. But now, I was a teenager and my body had matured since he last saw it. Now that gentleness would be considered a luxury or a “treat” for good behavior, what sort of treatment awaited me in that room? These thoughts still plagued me even as I finally arrived at the gilded doors of my master’s room. Inhale. Exhale. Quiet. Mask in place again, I entered. Master was waiting for me.

Per routine, I was ordered to strip; a simple task with my rags. I stood still as he got up to inspect me, circling like a vulture eyeing his next meal. He remembered me, of course, and commented on how I’d grown, running cold hands over my breasts as he spoke. It was cold in general in this room, I noticed. Once he was satisfied with his inspection he presented me with a collar and placed it around my neck. It was a simple rope, with the tail of it extending down between my breasts and coming to an end just past my knees. I was to wear it every time I was summoned to be played with.

He started off gently, I guess, leading me by my leash to the chair he’d been waiting for me in and sitting before ordering me to my knees. There had been some masters in the past who would also have me use my mouth, so I wasn’t a stranger to what he was asking. I did as I was told. I couldn’t tell whether or not he knew that my leash was slowly wrapping more and more around his hand as I brought him closer to climax. The tightness of the rope around my neck when he was done told me he didn’t, or just didn’t care as much. I swallowed as best I could despite it and was then ordered to sit on the bed, so I did.

Moments later, he loomed over me, naked now too. I stared up at him, docile and submissive as I’d always been taught to be, waiting for either further orders or for him to do something. He reached down to take my leash in his hand again, letting the rope run over his hand as he regarded me. His free hand came to rest on my thigh and my skin burned where he touched it, suddenly bringing back the sick feeling I’d felt at the exchange. I couldn’t afford to lose my composure, not here and not now, so I kept my mask firmly in place, and swallowed back the disgusting feelings that settled into my skin. His hand slid up along my side and my breast, cupping my cheek for a moment before his fingers hooked under my chin to raise my head. Already he was a lot more handsy than previous masters had dared to be.

“Oh, Rosalind, look at you,” he whispered, his face suddenly very close to mine, “from a tiny bud into a blooming rose. You truly are worthy of your name.”

A name I was beginning to hate.

He kissed me then, and for the first time in a long time I was at a loss for what to do. For as long as I could remember, none of my previous masters had ever kissed me, anywhere or at any time. They preferred to use their hands, or other parts of their body, or objects, but never their mouths. I made the mistake of not being responsive for too long, which earned me a few slaps and pinches to my thigh and my ass. Fumbling now, I responded the best I could and it seemed to make him content again. The collar remained tight around my neck, and like before he was now holding the leash tightly and restricting my breathing. Between that and his tongue in my mouth, I was suffocating. Fortunately, he pulled away and readjusted my collar so it was looser around my neck, and then moved down to press kisses along my breasts, occupying both hands. I let him do what he wanted while I concentrated on breathing while I could.

His actions were so tender compared to what I was used to that for a moment, for just a brief moment, I almost believed I was somewhere else. And then a glint showed in his eyes as he gave my wings a look over.

“Oh dear, healed already? We can’t have that.”

It had been some time since my previous master had cut my wings, so naturally the cuts that had been formed then were starting to scar over too. He straightened up and took my leash in hand again, any kind look previously on his face replaced with the same hard gaze that he’d regarded me with that night too.

“On your stomach,” he ordered. I did as I was told.

This master was slightly more forgiving than the master I’d had that night with the three of them. He didn’t delight in causing pain, but he was instead indifferent to the pain of others. He wouldn’t unnecessarily prolong the cutting session, but neither was he guaranteed to go easy on me. As I lay there listening to him prepare and finish preparations, something large and foreign entered me. Apparently, despite the distraction of my wings, he wasn’t done playing with me and intended to continue after this. He had grown hard again before my wings became a distraction, but since it was only him here he couldn’t have someone else stretching me while he worked, so he used something else instead. I don’t know what it was, but the sudden stretch of it entering me made me cry out despite my attempts to remain quiet. This seemed to amuse my master, since he grinned wickedly when I looked at him.

“Writhe for me, little rose,” he said as he gave my ass a few pats, “and I just might make it sweet for you later.”

As he went to work cutting my wings, as always, I did as I was told.

Afterwards, my wings once more searing with pain, he replaced the object and entered me instead. He held onto my leash from behind me this time, and just like the previous two times it became tighter as his thrusts grew faster. Unlike the previous, numerous times other masters had done this, though, he held me up somewhat instead of keeping me flat on my stomach the whole time, which made it hurt a little less. So I guess, in a way, he did as he said he would.

When he was finally, truly done with me for the night he dismissed me to the segregated slave quarters without the rags I’d gone to him in, justifying it with giving me something newer and nicer tomorrow. This wasn’t the first nor the last time a master would have me leave naked, so there was no point in protest or questions. Before I could leave, though, he squeezed and then slapped my ass which ushered me out the door and into the cold, dark hallway.

I shivered as I made me way down the hall, instinctively wrapping my wings around me. Pain ripped through my body as they moved, but I’d learned in previous years that they could make for some crude coverage if need be, or act as a blanket—though their efficiency as the latter was weakened due to having freshly cut holes in them. Without other sensations or my mask to drown it out, I slowly became acutely aware of the pain in my body with every step I took on my way back to the quarters. The familiar burning pain in my wings, as if they’d been set on fire and were still burning. The throbbing between my legs that felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, with wetness dripping down my legs that I didn’t want to think about right now. And of course, the new pain of the rope burn that had developed around my neck.

Unfortunately, that first night had been a lie. A trap. I’d wondered, ever since I took stock of who this master had bought, why our common shared trait seemed to be that we were difficult slaves. I required constant maintenance, the moles were blind and thus couldn’t do tasks as well as the rest of us, Zeev had behavior problems, and even the other three half-demons had traits that would make working for most masters difficult to deal with. So why would he want us, and only us? The answer wasn’t clear at first and took a while to realize.

It started with Zeev, who was still being a defiant idiot. The first few times he refused an order were ignored or lightly punished, and if he did do a task he was assigned and half-assed it anyway he would usually be punished by being forced to do it again until it was properly done. But then he started to get thrown in the dungeon and denied meals for anything from talking back to the same things he’d always done. The moles, at first forgiven for their inability to do some of the same tasks as us would start to get severely and unfairly punished for accidents like dropping plates. And for me, though the first playtime was deceptively gentle, subsequent nights where I was called to his room would steadily grow rougher. He’d pull the leash tighter, kiss rougher, bite, and leave me throbbing with a worse pain than the first night. When it was time to cut my wings again, he made more and longer cuts than he had at first. It was on one of those nights when I made the realization for why it was specifically us.

Like before, I was waiting on the bed for him to get what he needed in order to start the cutting ritual. Unlike previous times, however, when I heard him walking back towards me there was no foreign object. What entered me instead was him and for a moment I thought maybe he’d changed his mind. The feeling of cold metal on the bare, human part of my back and the tightening of the collar made me immediately grow still, despite the pain of being entered unprepared. I didn’t dare to breathe as he passed the blade over my skin, raising goosebumps but not actually breaking the skin. Just what was he doing? He was feeling adventurous tonight, he’d said. So he wanted to see how much pain I could endure. Despite the odd angle that none of my previous masters had ever attempted, he got into a rhythm of slow, torturous pain that started when he worked the knife into the skin on the innermost part of my wing and made a complete cut from top to bottom, completely separating the wing skin there. Usually my wing skin was only cut but never fully ripped apart like he was doing. The pain of it was indescribably worse than just having my wings cut like normal. Then, he’d thrust.

Slash, thrust, slash, thrust, over and over until he’d thoroughly cut apart each flap of skin. When he couldn’t reach the very tips of my wings due to the angle, he’d forcefully bend them so he could reach and keep going. When he was done, finally, my wings looked more like torn curtains. At some point, I had broken into tears due to the pain and was trying to hide them in the bedsheets. My shaking shoulders and quiet sobs gave me away, though. I felt him shift behind me and now he was bending over me, one hand braced next to my head as the other still held the knife, now ghosting against the joint where my wings met my shoulder blades.

“You know what I still think, Rosalind?” he sounded as if he was talking to me, but I knew that tone better. I’d heard it before with my then-master when it was the three of them. He ran the knife along the length of one of my wing arms before tossing it aside and using his free hand instead. I couldn’t tell what he was doing and I’d almost forgotten about the answer until,

“I think things would be much easier if we were to just…” rather than finish his sentence he punctuated the point by pulling at my wing instead and suddenly realization hit. This man, this demon, was the one who suggested ripping my wings out.

Yes, of course, how could I have forgotten?! The realization of which of the three he had been made everything click into place and I remembered, now, what I’d heard about him years ago, before the changes happened to me. This demon was known as The Breaker because he was a master at breaking his slaves. He’d give them a false sense of security and then become cruel and toy with them until they either died or had their spirits broken enough to be sold around to others. Half-demons that had not been born into the system would be sent to him, as would those of us who had been marked undesirable, for any number of reasons. The reason he kept no human slaves is because any he did have died and any more he’d take on would die within days while half-demons were more resilient. We could take the harsher treatment, even when it led to us either dying or breaking.

That night, I screamed as he held me up by my wings—now able to be gripped around the arms due to how he cut the skin this time—and thrust into me hard and recklessly. He didn’t care. He was laughing. Everything hurt and I crawled, rather than walked, back to the quarters that night.

I was terrified. We were going to die. We were all dead. If not now, or tomorrow, or next week, or next month, we would be eventually. Zeev, ever defiant, was firmly in this category. He seemed to, foolishly, hold the belief that he’d rather die fighting than on his knees serving. How? How could someone be this clueless, this reckless, this **_stupid_**?! Admittedly, I hadn’t attempted to associate with him after we arrived here beyond our brief interaction at the Exchange. If he noticed, he didn’t comment on it. In my defense, it was a foolish and selfish attempt in keeping myself high in master’s favor. Association with a disobedient slave would get you lumped in with them, after all. The reason there had never been a slave revolt, to my knowledge, is exactly because we were all focused on keeping ourselves alive than to worry about each other.

Yet, here I was, worrying about a fellow slave who definitely deserved every punishment he got for defiance, and others who didn’t deserve this. They couldn’t even **_see_**! I’d always done what I was told, ever since I was born and since as early as four years old. Acting out and disobeying had never, not once, crossed my mind. Not until I met a boy—a **_stupid_** boy—who despite everything thrown at him, despite staring death in the face every day when we woke up, would keep fighting and not show any signs of breaking. I needed to talk to him.

That was easier said than done. Zeev was often locked up in the dungeon, being made to starve. On days when master decided to play with the mole girl instead of me, I was often too preoccupied with the expected chores to be able to sneak off to the dungeon. Master’s mansion was huge, and there were only seven of us—and only two of us were girls who did chores. It took a few cycles of him going in and out of the dungeon, but I was finally able to sneak away one night while master was occupied and the rest of the boys were asleep.

By this point, Zeev had been deprived of dinner for today, so I snuck into the kitchen and grabbed a few simple finger foods that I could easily carry with me. I couldn’t make anything without being noticed, so this was the best I could do. I didn’t anticipate how dark the dungeon would actually be at night. My changes had given me a fair number of advantages over normal humans, but night vision had not been one of them. This didn’t seem to be the case with Zeev, though, who not only noticed me but could recognize me even in the dim lighting provided to us by the moonlight barely making it in through the cell windows. It had been months now since the Exchange and whatever interest he may’ve shown then wasn’t present now. He didn’t trust me. I didn’t blame him. I offered him the food I brought and while his mouth and actions said no, his stomach growling said the opposite. I left the food where he could reach it and retreated back to the quarters. I wasn’t caught, and I was still alive.

Another cycle and another opportunity. I took food to Zeev again. The third time I did this, he actually began to talk to me in something longer than one word answers or lashing statements. I stayed to listen and talk longer, keeping my ears attuned to any potential noise upstairs to indicate the master was no longer preoccupied. Slowly, I began to learn about him, this unbreakable boy. I learned that we were more alike than I had initially believed. Although for different reasons and in different ways, we both appeared unbreakable on the outside, but were broken on the inside. I had never known my family. I wasn’t sure I even had one. Zeev had known his family, but was abandoned along with his sister when they were both young. He’d lost his sister too just before being found by slave traders and brought to that exchange. The way his voice shook when talking about his sister suggested there was something more to why he lost her, but I wasn’t here to pry and I wouldn’t make him tell me something he didn’t want to.

Most of the time we’d talk and exchange stories about ourselves and experiences. But a fair number of times we’d argue. Our world views were similar, but different, and I couldn’t understand his stubborn insistence on fighting and not dying. But that’s what I was here to learn, wasn’t I? We’d argue and I’d storm off, but I still went back the next time.

Despite recognizing me from the exchange when our secret dungeon meetings started happening, he didn’t remember my name. I told him, along with who gave it to me, when, and why and for how long it had stuck around. Names were important to us, given how rare it was to have a real name. I hated my name, but at least I had one. Zeev didn’t say anything to that and that night’s secret meeting concluded.

A few meetings later, as I gathered up what I could see of any remaining evidence that I’d been there smuggling food and disobeying orders, he said something to me that changed the rest of our time with our master.

“Thanks for the food, Roz.”

“What?” I paused in my walk back towards the stairs and turned to face him again.

“Thanks for the food.”

“No, what did you just call me?”

“Oh…” Even though I couldn’t make out his features very well in the dim light, I could tell by his voice and the motion of his hand behind his neck that he was sheepish about my having picked up on it, “Your name’s just…kind of long and hard to remember, so…I’m just going to call you Roz from now on.”

“Roz.” I repeated, sounding it out and closing my eyes.

It wasn’t that different from how my name was normally said, just a shorter version of it. Yet, coming from him and being repeated by me and echoed softly by the stone walls around us, it felt good. It felt right. I’d never felt that way about any of my names.

“Yes, call me Roz.”

I left after that, and returned to the quarters feeling—for once in my life—giddy and good about myself. For so many years, my name and the names I had before that, had been something bestowed to me as a mark of ownership that I could never claim and didn’t want to claim. But now, a name had been given to me freely, for no reason other than that it was easier to say, and I had accepted it.

Our nightly meetings were done in direct defiance of our master, the demon who could and would definitely kill us if he found out. The part of me that remained shackled to Rosalind cowered and feared at the very notion of disobedience, and of displeasing this particular master. But the new part of me, the part of me who is Roz, fears no such thing. As Rosalind, I’m nothing but a beautiful flower, meant to be looked at, plucked, and kept in a vase. As Roz, I’m a rose, beautiful on my terms and thorny so only those who know how can touch me.

My name was Rosalind, but not anymore. Now, I’m Roz.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! This is honestly the longest piece of original fiction I've written in a long time. It was 20 double spaced pages when I turned it in for class, and it's probably the best 20 pages I've written. I'm honestly pretty proud of it.
> 
> There's a part 2 to this that will be posted eventually.


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